The humble paper fire logbook is a fixture of millions of buildings right across the UK. Despite its crucial role as a central record of fire safety actions and information, it is often inaccurate or incomplete. As the rest of the world and indeed many of the products and processes that maintain safety in our built environment become digital, it is now time to stop focusing on unloved paper in limiting document storage boxes and look at better, and safer, digital solutions.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRFSO) already requires the Responsible People (RP) to ensure that all fire-safety equipment and devices are maintained in efficient working order, charging them with the safety of everyone on the premises. It makes the RP responsible for ‘the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures’. An up-to-date fire logbook, while lacking definition in the RRFSO and FSA, is regularly and explicitly referred to in BS5839-1 and many other standards and codes of practice. Under the Fire Safety Act 2021 (FSA), the RP has a further obligation to provide evidence of actions taken to meet relevant fire regulations, requiring all fire-safety work to be logged effectively and the records can be used to prove compliance or non-compliance.
Here are the top five reason why you should consider a move to digital fire logbooks in 2022:
1. Real-time visibility and management
Individuals with fire-safety responsibilities might oversee anything from a single premises to portfolios containing thousands of buildings with a wide range of uses, so a paper logbook hanging in an entrance lobby is both inconvenient to complete and hard to monitor. A digital fire logbook, hosted in the Cloud, can be completed quickly and without error on site, and monitored and reviewed at any location. This means that a property manager based in Manchester can check that the fire logbook for a building in Aberdeen is fully updated, completed correctly and fully compliant with their duty of care for that building. It also means that, if an incident does take place, the logbook is not at risk of damage or loss, as it’s safely stored in the Cloud. That same manager can oversee their whole estate with aggregated performance, compliance and task data visible from a single premises up, and across teams.
2. Full audit trail, compliance task management and asset level safety
An audit trail is essential and the consequences for not having one could be criminal. With a digital fire logbook a full, detailed audit trail is always available. This includes a log of testing and maintenance in the building, but also which users have completed what actions, raised what tasks or changed even small details of compliance systems and processes. Tio’s digital logbook includes guidance, best practice and full compliance task management for all users, from building owners to service providers and teams. It is preconfigured and set up for all users in just a few short clicks. Tio logbooks allow the creation of asset registers and the tracking of maintenance, test and servicing from the level of an individual safety asset up, delivering the very best in safety and compliance.
3. Improved access and availability
A digital fire logbook can be accessed and updated in a number of ways, for example via an app/browser and additionally in Tio’s case be accessed via a QR code (often on the fire panel), which means that any authorised person that requires access to the logbook can quickly and securely access, view or update it (depending on permissions). In this way, service providers, staff conducting weekly tests, RPs, FRAs and the Fire & Rescue Service, can access, monitor and update the logbook on site or remotely, making inspections and audits easier and more efficient, and buildings and occupants safer. Digital logbooks can also be shared via email as PDFs or printed and handed over (or kept in the document box).
4. All Fire and then more
A digital logbook can and should cover all the areas of a paper logbook and many more besides. For example, Tio is not only limited to fire devices, but replaces logbooks and records across a range of fire, security and safety topics, such as security systems, ventilation, suppression and extinguishing, access control, emergency lighting, electrical, gas and water safety. Large sites can require many logbooks, making paper trails into paper mountains. Clearly, digital can eliminate this and make records clearer. Tio is preconfigured so the whole logbook and all its guidance and compliance task management is delivered in a click by selecting that safety area for a building. Digital should not be more expensive or more complicated than paper.
5. Digitised document storage and emergency contacts
Record keeping is more important than ever and in the old paper-based world, that means lots of paper storage, from the document storage box and beyond. Lots of paper is hard to organise, hard to access, difficult to inspect, and is often not kept up to date. With a digital document storage, such as the one available with every Tio logbook, any and all associated fire and safety documents can be quickly and easily uploaded to the Cloud and kept safe. Documents can be accessible to anyone with the right permissions, and of course the audit trail will note who uploaded them etc. Notes of keyholders, variances, false alarms can also be kept up to date quickly and easily in a digital logbook. Everything is readily available when you need it.
The digital fire logbook has the potential to save lives, as well as making life simpler and less stressful for anyone involved with fire safety. In a world where compliance is rightly becoming more serious and complex, it helps us all meet new challenges.
For more information, visit www.tiofiresafety.com
